Its the BEST time of the Year

Its the BEST time of year...It just makes you wanna jump and shout. Lets get excited. 

We did a lot this season but the best thing was spending time learning about the birth of our SAVIOR - Jesus. What an amazing plan God had to bring us Himself in the form of a baby to ultimately be the Lamb of Sacrifice needed to atone for our sin so that we can live forever in eternity. I mean who wouldn't shout for JOY!

We started decorating the weekend prior to thanksgiving. Maybe even before that. The one perk of an artificial tree. New spot this year. 

all decorated

up close

A panoramic view of our house during this season. Don't mind the pile of laundry that needs to be folded, the toys on the floor and the cupboard doors wide open. The joys of the season.

The kids decorated the entire downstairs tree with no help from me this year. 

We watched lots and lots of Christmas movies. Elf. The Grinch. Home Alone. Charlie Brown's Christmas, Christmas Vacation (adults only), Rudolf, Frosty, 

I did an awesome advent study with shereadstruth.com - Amazing! You should definitely check out their studies. Plus as a family with did Ann Voskamp's unwrapping the greatest gift. It was great too. A little bit above our littles but they really enjoyed the stories and hopefully next year we will do the Jesse Tree with it. 

We baked english muffin bread again for our neighbors. 16 loaves and that wasn't even everyone. Thank goodness I still had the tags we made a couple of years ago. 

I flopped a batch of popitee for Shadd's teachers. Never add baking powder when it calls for baking soda. Plus don't start it at 9 o'clock at night. Duh.  Second batch much better. 

making treats for shadds classmates

We crafted. Nativity scenes. Peppermint play dough. Christmas Chains (which they totally did all by themselves - really no help at all from me) Amazing. Ells cut and Shadd stapled and counted)

We sent out Christmas cards. These two were quite the helpers. If you didn't get one sorry. I ordered only 70 and well my list has more on it than that, whoops. Here is a copy of what it looked like.

And lots and lots of wrapping. One of my favorite things, I think. Is there a job for that? My friend T and I would love it. Plus I have a really cute crew.